Various surgical stapling devices and staples have been devised for closing wounds or incisions during surgical operations. One of the main reasons for their acceptance as a substitute for conventional suturing is that suturing tends to be very time consuming. A surgeon can frequently close a wound using a surgical stapling device and staples in a minute or two that would otherwise require ten or fifteen minutes to suture. This saving of time is of substantial importance, since it (a) reduces the length of time the patient must be maintained under anesthesia, (b) reduces the surgeon's time, (c) reduces the surgeon's fatigue, and (d) frees up the operating room faster so that it can be used for other surgical procedures.
A number of recent advances in surgical stapling devices and staples have been directed to increasing the variety of surgical procedures in which they can be effectively used. See, for example, the surgical stapling devices and staples described an illustrated in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 906,151, filed 9/11/86 by William D. Richards et al. for "Surgical Microstapler", pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 906,150, filed 9/11/86 by William D. Richards et al. for "Driver for Surgical Microstapler", pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 944,951, filed 12/22/86 by William D. Richards et al. for "Ophthalmic Stapler" and the pending U.S. patent application filed 11/3/87 by William D. Richards et al. for "Surgical Stapling System". Such surgical stapling devices and staples may be made of such dimensions, and are designed to so minimize stapling trauma to the tissues being joined, that they may be used for delicate surgeries, e.g. ophthalmic surgery or plastic surgery.
However, in some surgeries the need to precisely control the tension of the joinder between the tissues makes even these surgical stapling devices and staples less advantageous than conventional suturing. Such control over the tension of the joinder between the tissues can be particularly important in some types of ophthalmic surgery, e.g. such as where the curvature of the eye must be precisely regulated to minimize optical problems, and some types of plastic surgery, e.g. such as where relative positioning of the tissues must be precisely regulated to minimize cosmetic problems.